


it was always there

by yellowbound



Series: One Man for the Galaxy [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:36:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellowbound/pseuds/yellowbound
Summary: Cassian and Jyn react to missing thirty-four years of galactic events very differently.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the rebelcaptainfic prompts. I started out writing ‘temptation’ and somehow managed to additionally cover both ‘warmth’ and ‘one bed’. This is set in the ‘One Man for the Galaxy’ au, but I cover that background in this fic, so I don’t think you need to have read that first. I always wanted to explore more about how I felt Jyn and Cassian would react to their situation very differently, so this is a bit of that.

_You don’t have to stay_ , she had said.

An out. An offer, to be set down somewhere, as safe as the general could find.

Cassian thought about it. It was more of a temptation than he wanted to admit. The problem was, Cassian wasn’t good at just leaving things behind.

How could he leave this behind?

On the other hand, how could he function in this?

The Rebellion had been his life for twenty years - he had never imagined living without it. He had not thought he’d live to see a galaxy without the Empire.

Now he had woken up to a reality with no Empire, a New Republic, and a First Order. Messy, but not the same.

General Organa’s ship was the nicest he had ever seen, even better than the Imperial cruisers, because it wasn’t just cold functionality.

It was warm, in a way he wasn’t used to ships being. It was designed to support and inspire, not just function.

Kind of like the general.

He didn’t know how she did it, really. She had lost her planet, her parents, much of the galaxy she had tried to rebuild, her partner, her brother, her son…

Cassian didn’t want to be another person who left Leia.

She’d said she’d understand, and that was the worst part - Leia _would_ understand. She had never been through anything like what Cassian had, but in some ways she had come close.

Leia understood ‘I don’t want to deal with this’. She had seen it endlessly in other people. Cassian knew she had confronted it inside herself.

So, as little as Cassian knew how to deal with this, he also knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

Though he’d be on the next available transport out, if Jyn even so much as slightly hinted at leaving as what she wanted.

But here’s the thing, though: Cassian got the impression that Jyn really liked it here.

He knew what her life had been, before the Rebellion had broken her out of prison. There did not seem to be anything about it that she missed.

He had been with her when she had lost the two men who had raised her. He had been with her when they had both lost everyone who had come to Scarif with them. She had no one left alive she cared about, no cause she cared about.

So her lack of distress at missing more than thirty years of galactic events was, in some ways, not terribly surprising.

What was surprising is how thoroughly she took to being part of Leia’s team.

She liked Finn and Poe (Cassian remembered Poe’s parents - it was one thing to think about thirty-four years abstractly, it was quite another to stare the reality in the _face_ ), despite their personalities being nothing like her own. Or maybe because their personalities were nothing like her own.

She liked BB-8, in no small part because the droid often insisted on following Cassian around (he had caught the droid putting a tracking device in his shoe, and while it had caused concern, it was the concern of the droid being worried enough about him to put a tracking device in this shoe, not that he didn’t welcome BB-8 tracking him down wherever he was). Jyn had told him about the time she had caught Poe admonishing the droid for referring to Poe and Finn as Cassian and Jyn’s adopted parents.

She liked Leia, probably because she was a bit scared of her. Jyn wasn’t used to being scared of those in charge, at least not in this way.

She liked working with Cassian to go through intelligence reports, or Finn to go over weapons, or Poe to get ready for missions. She liked doing what Leia asked, bringing back some new information or source or supplies.

Cassian wondered, but did not ask, the last time Jyn had been this happy. Did she even remember? And while he did not feel the same, he did at least try to not make her miserable.

He was sitting in a room off the command center, when Leia found him, going over reports.

Or, at least, that’s what he had been trying to do, only he had been staring at them without absorbing any information for quite some time.

“What’s wrong?” Leia had asked. Leia was both perceptive and blunt. Cassian knew that’s why people were scared of her.

“I’m not doing what I should be doing.”

“And what should you be doing?”

“Helping gather information.”

Leia gestured to the datapads full of intelligence reports in front of him. “What are you doing with those?”

He looked down at them. “That’s different. I mean, I’m not out there, putting my life at risk-”

“Ah,” said Leia softly. It had brought Cassian up short. He had looked at her, with a despair he wasn’t sure how to hide. Leia moved closer, putting her hand over his that was gripping the datapad in front of him.

“No one needs to put their lives on the line to be valued.”

Cassian had twitched, slightly, and looked away.

Leia hadn’t stopped there, though. “No one needs to have a purpose or be able to do anything to be valued. I’ve seen people so broken by the Empire they could no longer do basic functions for themselves. They still deserved all the support we could give them.”

Cassian just wanted her to stop. He got the point, she didn’t need to keep talking.

She kept talking.

“Your friends value you, even if you can’t go with them.”

Cassian had not been able to prevent the soft distressed sound from escaping at that, and had been mortified by it. “Cassian,” Leia had said firmly, her hand gripping his. “You’re okay.” He looked up at her then. It was taking all he could not to cry. “Leave this. It’s not going anywhere.”

After a moment, Cassian had gotten up to go find Jyn.

He had found her in their quarters, chatting with Finn about a new type of blaster he had found. Finn fought in a way Jyn wasn’t familiar with, and that fascinated and impressed her.

(Leia had thrown them in a room together. One bed. Big enough for both of them to sleep comfortably. They had neither one ever known such comfort. They said nothing, either to Leia or one another about their sleeping arrangement. If Jyn had seemed uncomfortable, Cassian would’ve changed it. But she never had.)

They both smiled at him in greeting, but their smiles didn’t last long. Finn soon took his leave, placing an affectionate hand on Cassian’s shoulder as he did so.

“What’s up?” Jyn asked, once they were alone.

“I, uh-” Cassian ran a hand through a hair. How to say ‘I really don’t know what I’m doing can you help me?’

She stepped close to him, looking up, searching his face. Cassian got the impression she was seeing what he would do.

He had kissed her, then. He had not kissed her since before. Before they had woken up. When they had been on the damaged Imperial shuttle, stranded in an ice storm. Unsure if they would ever wake up. Knowing it might be their only chance.

He had often found himself pressed against her, even though their bed had more than enough space for both of them. This warmth was different, though, as it spread through him, a kiss that wasn’t desperate or hurried, with nothing violent or fleeting behind it. Cassian allowed his hands to move over her, eventually ending up on her face, as she held them together.

“Ah,” Jyn said, pulling away slightly. “So that’s how I get you to smile.”


End file.
